Saturday, November 29, 2008

...but there you are, we've got pee in the news again. Minnie sprayed my couch, or leaked on it somewhere, or some damn thing to make it stink. I slathered it with Febreeze last night and Nature's Miracle today, and I hope one or both of them help. I found lots of suspicious spots on the couch, but I can't tell in daylight whether they're actually pee. I'll have to wait and go over the couch after dark with my UV light. Anyway, I sprayed N.M. on all suspect areas and I hope it improves things.

On the kitty front, there were no tiny pee clumps in the litterbox after last night, which means Minnie never felt the urgency (unless she did it on my couch, grrr), so maybe she's getting better.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Well, it does a little, but certainly not a normal amount. Minnie has taken to sitting in her litterbox for quite a while, but doing only a tiny little pee. And often she'll come back a few minutes later to try again, only to do very little or nothing again. She doesn't seem to be in pain, but she's vocal and restless, so, just in case it was something bad, I took her to the vet yesterday. She was not thrilled by this, especially since Mom had to sort of ambush her to get her in the carrier. The vet said her bladder felt normal and maybe she just has a bladder infection, which girl kitties tend to get now & then (not unlike girl humans).

After her exam, Minnie got back in her carrier without complaint. No doubt, she just wanted to get right the hell away from all the poking & prodding!

We came away from the vet with a liquid antibiotic, a general "don't worry" message, and a recommendation to change her food to something with a urinary health formula (Science Diet or Eukanuba is what he recommended). Anyone have any thoughts on the subject of urinary health food for kitties?

Minnie's been a very good girl about slurping up all her medicine so far. Of course, I serve it with her all-time favorite stinky meat, Fancy Feast Elegant Medleys turkey goop. I hope she gets well soon, because I spotted a dot of urine with some blood in it in an inappropriate place this morning. Poor baby....

Saturday, November 22, 2008

If a female cat sprays once, it might be a fluke--some territorial thing that can be overlooked because she did it outside. If it happens again--this time inside--that could mean trouble.

Yesterday, I had some repairmen in the house and Minnie was just going apeshit, totally freaked out and running all over the place looking for escape or a hiding place or something. She did zip outside once when a repairman went out to look at something, but she stopped dead in her tracks because there was a truck and a bunch of guys doing noisy things in the alley. She was caught between a rock and a hard place! She reluctantly went back into the house and resumed running hither & yon.

Sometime after the repairmen left and I went off to work (so I could pay for said repairmen), Minnie sprayed a bag of (non-smelly) trash I'd left in the kitchen to take out later. And I didn't discover it until this afternoon, when I finally got around to dealing with the trash. I'd wondered why she was sniffing the kitchen floor so intently last night.

It gives me the heebie-jeebies to think I tracked through cat pee in the kitchen and maybe trailed it all through the house. *shudder* Needless to say, I mopped the kitchen thoroughly today after I got that trash bag out...and the rug next to it, which scored an indirect hit. The rest of the house, I'm not going to think about. I don't smell any cat pee, anyway.

OK, so now I have a new cat rule: When Minnie gets so extremely freaked out like that, PUT HER OUTSIDE, at least until the "danger" is past and she's maybe done her spraying on the fence. Because, apparently, spraying is her new I'm-totally-unhinged-with-fright reaction.

It really makes me wonder what I'm going to do with her next March or April when Bro-in-law & Sis & I start demolishing my bathroom to remodel it.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

My breakfast book at the moment is The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen. I'm enjoying the mystery part, which takes place both in the present and in 1880s Boston, but the love-story part is a bit tedious. That's probably just me, though--I've become a bit crotchety on the subject over the years. I like this book well enough to hunt up other titles by this author, though.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Minnie's bathroom problem finally cleared up by itself. I've been watching her food and treats very closely lately, making sure there's not too much of either one going into her mouth. As it is with computers, so it is with cats: GIGO (garbage in, garbage out).

Thursday, November 13, 2008

New Year's Day--just a month and a half away--is Minnie's official birthday, or "gotcha" day, the first day of the month she took up residence in my home. She'll be officially five years old then; her actual age is just a guess in that neighborhood. It's hard to believe she's been with me for nearly three years. She's got her moods, like any cat (or any human), but she's almost always a sweetie, and a right pig for scritches...especially at 5:30 a.m. or so, when she senses me coming up reluctantly from sleep in anticipation of the alarm going off.

Anyway, I took this photo a few weeks ago while shooting pix for eBay auctions--I caught her just as she spied someone at the door and went on Red Alert. Click on the pic to "biggify" it on my Flickr site. Plus you'll find three other pix of Minnie, this time squaring off against her archenemy, Leo the Pee Monster. :)

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Minnie's been having bathroom difficulties lately. I had bought her a different kind of treat because I wasn't able to find her usual Dentabites at WalMart anymore and the new treat (tartar-control Temptations, beef flavor) gave her the runs. Dentabites are by Temptations, too, but they're a chlorophyll treat that really improves cat breath. They are kitty-approved in our household. :)

I found the Dentabites at PetSmart last Saturday, but Minnie's still a little "loose". I don't know what else might be bugging her innards. I've tossed all the "suspect" kitty treats, and I know she's eating the same food as she was before she started having problems. She gets Purina ProPlan weight-management chicken-&-rice, plus a little of the ferals' Cat Chow (she likes the extra fat, I'm sure!), plus a spoonful of Friskies salmon wet food in the morning. Same as ever. How long does it take to shake off treat-related diarrhea?

Saturday, November 8, 2008

My breakfast book lately is An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear. This is the fifth book in the Masie Dobbs series about a young woman in the years after the Great War. She's a psychologist/investigator now, making her own way in the world. During WW I, she was a nurse stationed in France, and that experience follows her everywhere. It's an excellent series, full of sensory detail from post-World War I England. This book in particular is quite absorbing--it has made me late to work on several mornings! :D The first book in this series is titled Masie Dobbs; you'll want to start there.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Thursday, November 6, 2008

I don't know whether to ascribe my packing style to OCD or being an old Girl Scout, but it sure elicits some funny feedback from people who buy stuff from me on eBay. One fellow years ago said his purchase was "packed to withstand a nuclear blast!" Today, I got this one: "GOSH HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO WRAP THESE ITEMS BUT THANKS AAAAAAAAA++++++++++". :D I believe that buyer was happy with the results.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

I still don't know why my ferals stopped eating--or, rather, slowed way down--but I suspect it might have been the old plastic food shelter I put over their food bowls. I've been using this one a long time, and any cat owner knows how plastic absorbs smells. Well, this one has had to absorb the extra smells of Leo the Pee-Monster spraying it now & then to assert his "ownership" of the property (otherwise known as my backyard). How would you like to eat where someone else has peed? I know I wouldn't!

I checked the food many times, to be sure--there were no bugs in it (the ants have gone to ground now that the weather's turned cold, and I keep out slugs with a perimeter of salt around the food shelter), no weird smells, no effluvia from sick kitties (a problem I had before when poor Mr. Black was deteriorating on his way to the Rainbow Bridge). And my research about Purina confirms that there hasn't been any contamination of their dry food (they had to withdraw only one type of moist dog food, I think).

So the problem must be the old plastic food shelter. I bought another big storage bin this weekend and will get it fixed up as a new food shelter soon. It's been pretty windy the last couple of days, which blows crud into the food and water.

Oh--the cats are eating again, although the food still doesn't dwindle as fast as it used to. Maybe some of my ferals found someone else to mooch off. :D